1. Wanna Get Stuff Done? Keep Your Mouth Shut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4 The received wisdom is that, when you have a goal in mind, you should tell all your friends about it because they will be able to hold you to account, thus making you more likely to achieve your goal. This, however, has turned out not to be the case. In fact, if you start telling people all about your plans to learn Arabic and lose 20lbs, you're much less likely to do it. This is because the praise you will receive from people (if you happen to have nice friends) when you talk about your goals basically gives your brain the same boost as if you had already done it. This tricks it into thinking that you've already achieved something and so you don't have to work so hard anymore. Simply keeping your trap shut won't work either as even just
visualising your success will drain you of the drive to achieve it. If you get warm fuzzies from imagining yourself as a successful, slim, multilinguist, it has the same effects as telling everyone about it. By all means, have goals and work towards them, but only allow yourself to celebrate them
after you've achieved them.
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